Taste of Belgium exits Columbus' Wexner Center

Visitors to the cafe in the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus won’t taste Belgium anymore, but they will see a familiar face behind the counter.

Cincinnati-based Taste of Belgium LLC, tapped in October to serve as the full-time operator of the cafe, ended its run April 1 under mutual agreement with the Wexner Center. Owner Jean-Francois Flechet told Columbus Business First, a sister paper to the Business Courier, both sides decided it was “better to go our separate ways.”

The cafe opened April 4 with a new name, Abbondanza, but with Taste of Belgium manager R.J. White stepping up as the new owner-operator. Few changes in offerings or appearance have taken place in the first week of the new venture’s run, though Taste of Belgium’s signature waffles and crepes are gone. Visitors a few weeks from now, however, won’t have to squint to see the difference.

“We’re doing a soft opening at this point,” White said. “Everything will change, including the menu, the first of May.”

Driving the menu at Abbondanza, Italian for “abundance,” will be a focus on locally sourced items, seen early on with the arrival of Columbus-based Stauf’s Coffee Roasters Ltd. as the cafe’s java purveyor. White said he’s also working with nearby farmers’ markets and Bluescreek Farm Meats, a merchant in the North Market where he served up waffles for Taste of Belgium before coming to the Wexner Center.